


Leaving Home

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Community: sentinel_thurs, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:56:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9919937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: On his eighteenth bithday, Jim leaves home





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'military'

Leaving Home

by  Bluewolf

Jim left home on his eighteenth birthday.

It wasn't a day that would otherwise stand out in his memory; the only person to wish him a happy birthday had been Sally. Breakfast had been a meal outstanding only for the dark cloud of disapproval hovering over everything; William Ellison's last words to his older son a stern admonition not to be late before he headed off to his office. He drove himself; but in his determination to show his workers that, although he had given his son a job, he was not playing favorites, William left Jim to make his own way there by bus.

Stephen, as always the son in favor, grinned as he deliberately spilled the  glass of juice he had been ignoring in such a way that the liquid landed on Jim's arm, staining his shirt. He rose, heading off for the school bus, saying, "Yeah, Jimmy, don't be late!" as he disappeared. The door slammed behind him.

Jim took a deep breath and went through to the kitchen. "Sally... "

She took one look at him. "Stevie?"

He nodded. "Why does Stevie hate me?" he asked. "He doesn't need to be jealous; Dad likes him better anyway."

"I don't know," Sally admitted. "Give me your shirt."

He stripped it off, saying as he handed it over, "Having to delay to put on a clean shirt means I was going to miss my bus, and Stevie knew that. You'd think that on my birthday, at least, he wouldn't play any dirty tricks like that."

"You're not going to work, are you?" she asked.

"No. I packed a bag last night, and there's a note for Dad that I'll leave in his office here. All you need to say is that I left as usual..."

"Just be careful, Jimmy."

He went upstairs, collected his bag and the letter for his father, went into the office and laid the letter on William's desk, then paused again at the kitchen. 

"Goodbye, Sally. I'll write to you care of your sister, as often as I can. And... thank you for everything." He gave her a quick hug, then left, walking briskly down the road.

He had been planning this since the day he left school and his father, rather than let him attend Rainier University as he had wanted, gave him a job in his office, saying that learning the business from the bottom was the best way to be successful when the day came that he rose to a position of importance in it.

Ha! That would be right, he thought. His father would never let him rise to a 'position of importance'. Stevie might get that; the best position that Jim could hope he might be given, even after forty years, was a bare step above the most junior gofer in the firm.

In his own way, Jim was as driven as William to make a success of his life, but even if he had trusted his father he didn't want a career in business. The competition William had engendered between his sons, the lessons in 'do not trust' (meant, Jim knew, to teach hard-headed business sense) had left Jim deeply suspicious of the honesty of 'hard-headed business sense'.

No. A life in business might suit the selfish brat Stevie had become. He was certainly showing no compunction over metaphorically cutting Jim's throat.

There was an army recruitment office in the town; now that he was eighteen he could sign up for the military and his father would never know.

That was a career that Jim knew would suit him.


End file.
